No-Smoking Zones in Many Businesses Approved by Orange County Supervisors

The Orange County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance on Tuesday requiring businesses with 10 or more employees in unincorporated areas of the county to set up no-smoking areas for their workers.

The board voted 4-0, with newly appointed Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez abstaining, to require employers to make “reasonable efforts” to develop and promulgate no-smoking policies that comply with the ordinance, which will take effect Nov. 1.

The vote capped years of debate.

The Orange County Chamber of Commerce fought the ordinance, contending that businesses’ voluntary efforts would solve the problem. The chamber also declined to help draft the ordinance, which carries a maximum penalty of $100 a day for each violation.

The law requires that smoking be banned in elevators, restrooms, hallways, conference rooms, auditoriums and at least half the space in cafeterias, lunch rooms and employee lounges.

It gives any employee the right to designate his or her work area a no-smoking location and specifies that “in any dispute arising under the smoking policy, the health concerns of the non-smoker shall be given precedence.”

Exempt from the ordinance are bars, hotel and motel rooms rented to guests, stores selling tobacco exclusively and private and enclosed office workplaces occupied exclusively by smokers, even though they may be visited by non-smokers.

Restaurants are also exempt because they are governed by a previous law covering no-smoking areas for the public.